I’ve never really been legitimately freaked out about crashing while flying on an airplane before. Sure, sometimes you get some turbulence here and there – but usually nothing major enough that everyone starts looking around, afraid that this is about to become that one scene from the first episode of Lost.

That all changed last weekend as our plane from San Francisco made its way to Los Angeles. After the turbulence continued for almost ten minutes, it was hard not to wonder when the oxygen masks were inevitably going to drop from the ceiling. (Thankfully, they didn’t.) But following our hour through rough skies, we finally touched down in the land where winter feels like a spring day in the midwest, ready to head out to that evening’s 2009 Video Game Awards, for which one of our favorite games, MADWORLD, had been nominated for best game on the Wii.

After a quick lunch of Japanese Ramen in Little Tokyo, we regrouped at the hotel, changed into our fancy clothes, and took off towards the check-in area, which was only a couple miles away. It was raining, sometimes in heavy bursts, and the streets of LA (which generally don’t get that much rain), were starting to flow with water. A few tickets and some walking later, and we were nice and dry inside the awards area.

You almost got nominated for game of the year, Jack. Maybe next time.

They somehow managed to give us tickets to seats that apparently didn’t exist, so after some Walkie-talkie action the organizers set us up with a new pair of tickets, which were a bit more towards the middle – no problems there! The seats filled quickly, the awards began, and the next thing I knew Jack Black was only about a hundred feet away from me, smashing his new trophy and being escorted off the stage. Win!

MADWORLD may not have officially won the award for best Wii game at the show, but I think the fans hard work is very commendable here, especially for the only game on the Wii list that was A: Rated M, and B: Not made by Nintendo! Special thanks as well to the guys at PlatinumGames, who put in the black, white, and red that made the game what it is.

Two special guests also had live musical performances – First up was Snoop Dogg, who kept making me think about that video with the Kirby theme song – and second was The Bravery, who I think maybe three people in the audience actually enjoyed. (Sorry, Bravery!) But we did have some pretty nice stars show up to present the awards, including Samuel L. Jackson, Mike Tyson, that one guy from Scrubs, and many more.

After the awards were over, we all headed to the after-party. The after-party, for those of you not familiar with the industry, is where you get free food, drink a lot, talk with other people in the industry, drink some more, move to a different bar, and then finish things off with some more drinking for good measure. Some go for the social aspect – some go for the alcohol. In either case, you’ll almost always be getting a bit of both.

Once the after-party – and the after-after party – was done, we headed back to the hotel. I opted out of the after-after-after-party (yes, there seriously was one), and instead went back to get some sleep so I could revisit parts of the town the next morning.

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Sunday Morning offered just a couple hours to explore the parts of L.A. I used to visit when I lived here, so I spent my time in Little Tokyo getting Mochi and picking up some special gifts that I’ll be taking home to the midwest next week. If you guys are ever in LA and enjoy Japanese culture, I highly recommend you head over to Little Tokyo, get some Ice Cream Mochi, and check out what they have to offer.

Ice Cream Mochi!

Things ended with all of us heading back to LAX, hopping onboard our plane, and arriving back in cloudy San Francisco – with a much smoother ride on the return.

Special thanks again to all the MADWORLD fans who voted for the game, to my two awesome stylists, and to Spike for organizing and setting up the event!

Until next year!

Games like Sonic the Hedgehog may have been the most visible legacy of the SEGA Genesis system, but it was the quirky & utterly unique platforming experience of games like the Earthworm Jim series that defined the core of the platform — and it just so happens that Earthworm Jim 2 is now available on Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console!

Earthworm Jim 2 is as visually inventive as games get, a fun & challenging platformer with whimsical stages, bizarre enemies, and a wildly entertaining soundtrack to boot. A variety of weapons and skill-ups highlight some of the most entertaining levels in any game of the 16-bit era. Earthworm Jim 2 continues the visual inventiveness of the first game, but amps up everything by including power-ups and multiple weapons — by the time you’re using a marshmallow to rescue tiny puppies being flung out of a window by a sadistic crow, you’ll likely know you’re playing a different sort of game.

I’m actually new to Earthworm Jim 2, and when I started playing it for this Virtual Console article, I found myself hooked (pun not intended — my apologies to worms everywhere).  Rather than take you through a bunch of same-seeming platform levels, the game is a truly unique experience from level to level, including a stage in the chillingly dystopian (yet strangely hilarious) “ISO-9000″ level, a grim, gray-hued corporate wasteland where the landscape is made up of reams of paperwork, and Earthworm Jim is assaulted by implacable sentient filing cabinets. The music for the level is equally appropriate, a mournful Pink Floyd-esque guitar wail.

Actually, the whole game has pretty awesome music, a tribute to the ultra-fast metered midi creativity of the 16-bit era. Most levels feature various hard-rock guitar & drums tunes, whereas a few levels have renditions of more classic music, including “Funiculi Funicula” for a recurring bonus stage, a jaunty tango for a Circus-themed stage, and Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on the final level.

Did I say before that Earthworm Jim 2 was utterly unique? Perhaps this is the right time for another groaning pun — there is an udderly unique level in Earthworm Jim 2 that revolves around transporting cows that hatch from flowers around a lunar landscape while a rapid-fire polka plays. This is — well — it’s exactly as odd (yet endearing) as it sounds. Indicative of the attention to detail this game has, the cows that Earthworm Jim carries around have a bug-eyed expression that makes it clear they’re as surprised as anyone that they’re being carried around a far-away planet by a ray-gun toting worm astronaut.

Here’s a choice sample from a YouTube playthrough of the game — you get a great sense here of the game’s surreal mechanics, awesome music, and general funkiness. Depicted here are the aforementioned Cow Level and the puppy-saving mini-stage:

Earthworm Jim 2 has a lot to recommend it. The fact that I’d somehow missed playing it before means that I would likely never have had a chance to if it hadn’t shown up on Virtual Console, so I’m grateful that we’re putting classic games like this back into the public consciousness — check this game out if you get a chance!